Two changes in the lineup for today’s 1 p.m. matinee against Colorado:

Thomas Greiss in, Antti Niemi out in goal.

Scott Gomez in, a player to be named later out on the fourth line.

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“We’re going to try and inject some fresh bodies and let them play,” said Coach Todd McLellan. No, you don’t want to change things too much on a team that has started 3-0, but scoring from the second and third lines has been non-existent so far and the Sharks didn’t sign Gomez to keep him on the bench.

“We’ve given him a heads-up that he will be playing,” McLellan said, preferring to not identify the player Gomez will be replacing because he wants to keep everybody sharp as long as possible.

“That’s not an unusual thing in the NHL,” he added. “You want to keep guys on their toes, especially this year with 48 games. If a guy goes two or three games and he doesn’t dress, that’s a big chunk of the season. They have to stay on their toes.”

McLellan did say he would keep the third line intact based on its play in Thursday night’s 5-3 victory over Phoenix. Expect Gomez to be used at center, but that doesn’t automatically mean Andrew Desjardins sits as Sharks forwards often play multiple roles.

Also expect to see Gomez on the second power-play unit.

Gomez said he expected to have the usual first-game nervousness, especially on a new team in a new conference.

“It takes a couple shifts” to get past that, he said, “but you still get excited. You’re still living the boyhood dream and every time you start a new year, it’s the same feeling. There’s some emotion, but you get rid of that right away.”

Gomez said he didn’t think the spotlight on him would be any bigger – think national attention, think Hockey Night in Canada reference — because of the circumstances that brought him to San Jose.

“No, there’s other stories that are more important,” he said. “It’s been awhile since all that went down. That’s past history.”

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*****Everybody knew the Sharks were revamping their penalty kill for this season after finishing 29th in the NHL. So far, there hasn’t been a vast improvement — San Jose is now 28th — but it is early. Despite the results, does McLellan see things he likes out there?

“We’re going to be evaluated on results. It’s as simple as that,” he said. “The number that shows up in the column at the end of the year is the number our staff is evaluated on. We’re also looking at the play of the penalty kill, some of the things we’re doing well, some of the things we’re not doing well.”

The one power play goal that his team gave up that bothered McLellan the most is the first, the one an uncovered Nail Yakupov zapped past Niemi in the Edmonton opener. The two that Phoenix scored — one after a valient PK effort while down two men for 1:49 before the Coyotes scored, the other that came after Niemi was knocked down — were not so troubling.

“I don’t know that we’re where we need to be yet,” McLellan said. “The cohesioin of four players jumping at the right times and going together is still something we’ve got to work through.”

McLellan noted that league-wide, power plays are having more early season success than penalty kills. He didn’t mention it, but that includes his own team as the Sharks are third in the NHL with a 38.9 success rate.

David Pollak

David Pollak has been following the NHL forever and at the Mercury News as an editor or reporter since 1987. For almost a decade he wrote about the Sharks as the paper's Fan in the Stands before joining the sports department in 2001. He became the Sharks beat writer before the 2007-08 season and began this blog at that time. You can also follow him on Twitter at @PollakOnSharks.